Hi, I am Hasna Fathima. And here’s my story of survival.
I am a single mother of three children but my story is not about how I survived a broken marriage. Mine is rather the story about how I started a journey into myself and how seemingly adverse life situations have led me into this.
Survivor Series: Hasna
I had two encounters with the word ‘Marriage’, the first encounter was it being ‘arranged’ where I met a man once at my home and we talked for five minutes leading into an arrangement of an apparently lifelong partnership within a month. The second encounter was it being ‘broken’ where we both were struggling to be nice to each other but stayed together for the sake of it or to not to hurt each other, and finally one among us had grabbed the courage to move out and be free. So, it was actually ‘breaking free’ rather than being ‘broken’ and in fact I am grateful to my partner for having taken the first step outside.
Few days after he left me, I started noticing that I am not sad and suddenly there was lot of space surrounding me. But it took much more time to make myself come out of my own conditioning as well as beliefs about the definitions of a relationship. When the need to compromise and please each other on a daily basis was no more there, I could see things with more clarity than before.
Survivor Series: Hasna
I started enjoying old hobbies which I had kept away after marriage. I learned some new skills that challenged myself and eventually help me build new brain connections and forgo the old traumatic memories. I travelled, just to move. I got my own car and started driving after almost 13 years. Whenever I felt the need for support, I dropped in at the Orange room, which was my perfect idea of a non-judgmental listening space. We organized support groups for single parents and shared our stories!
Survival is a different journey for each of us. But as a person, what helped me was trying to find the real meaning out of what looked like a ‘tragedy’ rather than following the narrations society puts onto a separation. Going back to my encounters with words, what looks like ‘broken’ may not be it, but rather it would be an opening through which light enters into us, as Rumi rightly said.
— Hasna Fathima
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